Overview
- Expands on Wilde’s relationship to key Victorian and nineteenth-century social movements and ideologies
- Identifies important influences on Wilde
- Illuminates Wilde’s perspectives on education, religion, science, philosophy, and social movements
Part of the book series: Literary Lives (LL)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Oscar Wilde's philosophy
- Victorian literature
- An Ideal Husband
- Wilde's religious influences
- King of the Aesthetes
- Wilde's writings on scientific thought
- Wilde’s Philosophy Notebook
- intellectual biography
- Lady Windermere’s Fan
- Fabian Society
- Irish Nationalism
- nineteenth-century social movements
- British and Irish Literature
About this book
Oscar Wilde: A Literary Life tracks the intellectual biography of one of the most influential minds of the nineteenth century. Rather than focusing on the dramatic events of Wilde’s life, this volume documents Wilde’s impressive forays into education, religion, science, philosophy, and social reform. In so doing, it provides an accessible and yet detailed account that reflects Wilde’s own commitment to the “contemplative life.” Suitable for seasoned readers as well as those new to the study of his work, Oscar Wilde: A Literary Life brings Wilde’s intellectual investments into sharp focus, while placing him within a cultural landscape that was always evolving and often fraught with contradiction.
Reviews
“Stern reveals the overlooked significance of Wilde’s encounters with multidisciplinary periodical literature and surveys his considerable contribution to fin de siècle periodical culture. … his influence upon periodical culture was equally significant and deserving of study by both scholars and enthusiasts.” (Rebecca Nesvet, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 53 (2), 2020)
“Oscar Wilde: A Literary Life is a well-researched, well written account of Wilde’s intellectual life and how he thought. readers will, though, enjoy stern’s study to the fullest if they come to it with a thoroughgoing knowledge of what Wilde thought, by close acquaintance with his works and by having already read a more traditional kind of biography.” (Aaron Eames, The Wildean, July, 2020)
“There has long been a need for an intellectual biography of Oscar Wilde, a need addressed with great aplomb by Professor Stern’s book. With impressive scholarship and sensitivity she explores Wilde’s complex and fluid engagements with the fields of biography, education, religion, science, philosophy and politics throughout his career, in a work that both undergraduates and long-time scholars of Wilde will find equally illuminating.” (Dr. Iain Ross, author of Oscar Wilde and Ancient Greece (2012))
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Kimberly J. Stern is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She is the editor of a Broadview edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (2015) and author of The Social Life of Criticism: Gender, Criticism, and the Politics of Belonging (2016).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Oscar Wilde
Book Subtitle: A Literary Life
Authors: Kimberly J. Stern
Series Title: Literary Lives
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24604-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-24603-7Published: 26 November 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-24604-4Published: 18 November 2019
Series ISSN: 2946-2037
Series E-ISSN: 2946-2045
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 266
Number of Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations
Topics: Popular Science in Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature, British and Irish Literature, Intellectual Studies